Monday, July 24, 2006

The auction house Bonhams and Goodman have sold the last privately owned Victoria Cross(VC) awarded at the World War I Gallipoli campaign in Sydney tonight. The medal was awarded to New Zealand-born Australian soldier Captain Alfred Shout. The sale price of $A 1 million surpassed the previous record of $A575,000 set in 2004 for the VC medal awarded to Sergeant Norman Jackson of the RAF 1944.

The Victoria Cross is the highest recognition for valour “in the face of the enemy” that can be awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces and civilians under military command. It is also the highest award in the British Honours system.

The buyer is an Australian businessman, auctioneer Mr Tim Goodman said “I can confirm the buyer is a prominent Australian businessman who is going to work with the RSL to make sure the medals go on display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.”, after commissions and other charges the successful buyer will pay $A1,214,500.

The addition of this medal will take the display of Victoria Crosses at the Australian War Memorial to 60. The display will include all nine Victoria Crosses awarded to Australian servicemen at Gallipoli.

Monday, June 30, 2008

After auctioning off his entire life on eBay for A$399,300 (€244 912.148) Ian Usher says he is “a little bit disappointed” at the final selling price.

The 44-year-old British immigrant living in Perth, Australia, put all of his worldly belongings up for sale on the popular auction website, including his three-bedroom house and all its contents, his car, motorcycle, jetski, skydiving gear, and his job at a rug store, for which he offered a two week trial period. He even offered introductions to his friends living in Perth.

Usher made the decision to sell his life after his five-year marriage suddenly ended. On his website, alife4sale.com, he explains that “despite my life being busy and fulfilled, I still miss my wife so much. Everything in my home is a reminder of the wonderful past we shared. So, after a year in this house I decided that it is time to sell it and move on.”

During the 7 day auction, which ended on Sunday, there were several bogus bids which brought the sale price as high as A$2.2 million, but the final price ended up at A$399,300, which was around A$100,000 less than Usher had hoped for. “I’m a little bit disappointed, but I’m still excited. It’s still enough to move forward and do what I said I was going to do, which is move on to the next part of my life,” Usher said. “It was as much about moving on as it was about selling it for as much as I could get.”

According to Reuters, the winning bidder, whose username is “mslmcc”, also lives in Australia, and has a 100 percent feedback rating. Usher says he hasn’t yet been able to figure out who the buyer is, because of the TV crews lined up in front of his home. “I’m trying to find some time to get on the computer and check it out … I haven’t looked (up) anything about them yet,” he said.

Usher now plans to go off in search of a new life. His initial plan, as he describes on his website, was to just walk out his front door with just his wallet and a passport and board a train, with no idea of where to go. He has since launched 100goals100weeks.com, which will document his attempt to complete 100 of his life goals in a span of 100 weeks. Some of these goals include getting a pilot’s license, climbing the Eiffel Tower, learning to play the didgeridoo, and shaking hands with billionaire Richard Branson.

“I was pretty aimless when I started this, and I had a vague notion of adventure, but I’ve come up with a much more solid plan, which is still very adventurous,” Usher says. He invites anyone who is interested to join him on his adventures.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Penny Lucas is running for the Progressive Conservative in the Ontario provincial election, in the Kenora-Rainy River riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed regarding her values, her experience, and her campaign.

Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.

Monday, November 2, 2020

The following is the sixth and final edition of a monthly series chronicling the 2020 United States presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after an overview of the month’s biggest stories.

This month’s spotlight on the campaign trail: the Free and Equal Elections Foundation holds two presidential debates, three candidates who did not participate in those debates give their final pleas to voters, and three political pundits give their predictions on the outcome of the election.

Monday, March 8, 2010

The skeletal remains of 14-year-old Escondido, California teenager Amber Dubois were found north of the Pala Indian Reservation Saturday morning, police said. Dubois disappeared February 13, 2009 while walking to Escondido High School. The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s office made a positive identification through dental records.

According to Escondido Police Chief Jim Maher, police were following a lead when they came across the remains. Maher declined to say what the lead was or to describe in detail the site where the remains were found. He also refused to reveal whether John Albert Gardner III, suspect in the murder of Chelsea King, is being linked to the Dubois case.

Amber’s father, Maurice Dubois, made a statement thanking those who had helped in the search for Amber. “The entire community, everybody who helped out with the search effort, and above all our huge volunteer corps, they are the most dedicated people and without them we couldn’t have done anything,” he said.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

The following is the ninth in a monthly series chronicling the U.S. 2012 presidential election. It features original material compiled throughout the previous month after a brief mention of some of the month’s biggest stories.

In this month’s edition on the campaign trail: the rules of third party candidate polling are examined, a third party activist causes four other parties to lose their place on the Illinois presidential ballot, and the new vice presidential nominee of the Justice Party speaks with Wikinews.

Sunday, May 8, 2005

Mars rover engineers have built a test bed simulating the condition of the Mars Rover Opportunity, which became stuck in a Martian sand dune on April 26. The test bed uses a combination of materials including play sand for children’s sandboxes, diatomaceous earth for swimming pool filters, and mortar clay powder.

Opportunity dug into soft sand to wheel-hub depth as it drove over a dune about one-third meter (one foot) tall and 2.5 meters (8 feet) wide. “We’ve climbed over dozens of ripples, but this one is different in that it seems to be a little taller and to have a steeper slope, about 15 degrees on part of its face,” said Mark Maimone, a Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) rover mobility engineer. Tests will be conducted using an Earth-bound twin of the rover and the simulated Martian dune to determine how to best maneuver Opportunity out of the predicament before transmitting commands to the actual vehicle.

“We choose to proceed cautiously, so we don’t expect to begin actually driving out of the dune before next week, possibly later,” said Jim Erickson, rover project manager at JPL. “Both Opportunity and Spirit have already provided many more months of scientific exploration than anyone expected. By taking good care of them, we hope to keep them exploring for more months to come. Tests so far have sustained our optimism about Opportunity’s ability to drive out of this dune, but we have more testing ahead to understand how robust that capability is.”

Engineers constructed a simulated dune last week using sand that was already at JPL’s rover testing facility and put a test rover into a similar dug-in position. The test rover had no difficulty driving away, even when sunk belly-deep. However, that sand offered better traction than the finer, looser material that appears to make up the surface at Opportunity’s current position. “We needed to do tests using material more like what Opportunity is in, something that has a fluffier texture and cakes onto the wheels,” said JPL rover engineer Rick Welch, who is leading the tests.

Based on images of wheels and wheel tracks from Mars, Dr. Robert Sullivan of Cornell University, a rover science team member, working with engineers in the JPL test bed, helped match the properties of the test sand as closely as possible with those of the sand beneath Opportunity, “We found that when the wheels dig in, the material we’re using does stick to the wheels and fills the gaps between the cleats, but it doesn’t stick when you’re just driving over it. That’s good because it’s the same as what we see in the images from Opportunity,” Sullivan said. Experiments show that the test rover, after some initial wheel-spinning, can drive out of the more powdery material.

The team went to several home supply and hardware stores to find enough bags and boxes of the ingredients to make more than 2 tons of the simulated Mars sand for the more realistic mobility tests, according to JPL rover mobility engineer Jeff Biesiadeckia.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Scottish football team Hibernian F.C. (Hibs) have appointed Pat Fenlon as their new manager. Fenlon signed the contract at Hibs’ Easter Road home ground in the capital, Edinburgh.

Fenlon left Bohemian F.C., an Irish football team he managed since 2008, so that he could manage Hibernian, which he is “really excited by”. Fenlon’s management career has previously remained in his native Ireland. From 2002, Fenlon managed Shelbourne F.C., which won the UEFA Cup in three of the five seasons he managed the team for. Fenlon went on to manage Derby City in 2007 before taking the managing position at Bohemians. According to Fenlon, Hibernian are “a club with a rich history and proud traditions.” Fenlon’s Hibs contract will last until the conclusion of 2013 / 2014 football season.

Hibs have now had five managers in as many years. Colin Calderwood is the most recent before Fenlon, being removed from his position on November 6 after twelve months managing the team. In that time they played in forty-nine matches and won in twelve of them. Calderwood has since gone on to become part of Birmingham City F.C., a football team based in the English city of Birmingham.

At the end of the previous football season, Hibernian F.C. placed tenth. As it stands, the team are currently ninth in the Scottish Premier League table. In reference to what he called the “quality players on Hibernian’s playing staff”, Fenlon stated that “there will need to be a lot of hard work and a clear change in mindset shown collectively by the team” and that a major target for them will be “to provide winning football to the Hibernian supporters, who have gone through some hard times recently.”

Tuesday, April 5, 2005Irish betting shop chain, Paddy Power, is taking bets for a new Pope. The current front runners are Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria and Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi of Italy, who have each been given odds of 11-4.

“Our feeling is, we held off a few days, and now the cardinals themselves are convening in Rome,” Darren Haines, a spokesman for Paddy Power said.

“We do it very much in the same way as a horse race,” Haines added, “Without sounding so callous, in a sense, we have contenders, and you very much rate the speculation on the contenders, very much by going on media reports in the religious press … Our trading manager is very clued up on this, though she hasn’t had divine intervention.”

The full betting list can be found here.